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eBay announces ivory ban in response to IFAW report

Monday, October 20, 2008

(London – 21 October 2008) – The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) applauds eBay’s decision to institute a global ban on the sale of elephant ivory products from 1 January 2009 and calls on all other internet traders to follow their example.

eBay’s decision was announced just hours before
the release of IFAW’s latest investigative report, ‘Killing with Keystrokes:
An Investigation of the Illegal Wildlife Trade on the World Wide Web’,
which shows that Internet trade in wildlife poses a significant and immediate
threat to the survival of elephants and many other endangered species.

The report followed a six-week investigation that
tracked more than 7,000 wildlife product listings on 183 Web sites in 11
countries.

IFAW’s report showed that elephant ivory dominated
the investigation, comprising 73% of all product listings tracked. Exotic birds
were second, accounting for nearly 20% of the listings tracked, but primates,
big cats and other animals are also falling victim to the online trade in live
animals and wildlife products, according to the report.

“IFAW congratulates eBay on this very important
step to protect elephants. With these findings and eBay’s leadership, there is
no doubt left that all Internet dealers need to take responsibility for their
impact on endangered species by enacting and enforcing a ban on all online
wildlife trade. eBay has set the standard for protecting elephants, now
governments and other online dealers need to follow their example,” said Robbie
Marsland, Director of IFAW UK.

The report also identified the US as the most
significant country for the trade in endangered species on the Internet, with
over 70% of all listings. The amount of trade tracked in the US was nearly 10
times the trade tracked in the next two leading countries, the UK and China.

The investigation singled out eBay as the largest
contributor to the problem, responsible for almost two-thirds of the online
trade in wildlife products worldwide. Overall, eBay sites in six countries were
discovered selling endangered wildlife products, including ivory and hides from
elephants, turtle shells, taxidermy items, and leopard, cheetah, ocelot, lizard
and crocodiles skins. Of this, a staggering two-thirds of all endangered species
products listed on eBay sites were traded on eBay US, including most of the
ivory listings, totalling almost 4,000. In one instance on eBay US, a user
purchased a pair of undocumented elephant tusks for more than $20,000.

Despite coming second to the US, IFAW
investigators in the UK found more than 550 postings for wildlife items on 22 UK
websites, over the six-week period of the investigation. Of these, 289 ( less
than 50%) were found on eBay UK - 93% of these listings were for elephant ivory
and 34% of these were in breach of eBay UK's own policy (requiring documentation
proving legality be included with the listing).

IFAW has worked with eBay UK over the past few
years to improve their site policy, public awareness and enforcement measures,
and continue to commend them for taking positive steps to reduce illegal ivory
sales. However, as this investigation has shown, the ban which eBay Inc
instituted today is timely and much deserved.

International trade in wildlife is estimated to
reach well into billions of US dollars annually – a black market rivalling the
size of the international trade in illegal drugs and weapons. Every year,
more than 20,000 elephants are illegally slaughtered in Africa and Asia to meet
demand for ivory products. Trade in African and Asian elephants is
prohibited/regulated under the international Convention on the International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Investigators found a total of 289 listings on
eBay UK, of which 270 were ivory items (93%).

Unlike the largely undocumented listings of ivory
on eBay US, UK sellers provided more documentation for ivory items - likely to
be a result of their compliance with eBay UK’s stricter wildlife policy on ivory
and possibly better filters and enforcement deterring trade in violation of site
policy.